Love Motifs in Prudentius

By analysing three paradigmatic passages, this paper explores how Prudentius uses classical love motifs and imagery not only to lambast paganism, but also as a powerful rhetorical tool to convey his Christian message. The ‘fire of love’ imagery is conspicuous in Psychomachia 53–57, which wittily blends Christian and erotic language. In an entirely different context (C. Symm. 2.1071–1085), the flamma amoris is also fully exploited to depict lustful young Vestal Virgins, in combination with other classical metaphors of passion, such as the ‘wound of love’ and the signa amoris. Additionally, the contrast between heat and cold is a central element in the description of the Vestals’ tardy nuptials, redolent of classical satirical portraits of vetulae libidinosae. Finally, in Hamartigenia 628–636 the relationship between the soul and God draws from a Christian tradition of bridal (and coital) representation, but the lapse into sin is portrayed as the love triangle, typical of the Latin love elegy. These examples illustrate how Prudentius creatively and consciously frames love and sex imagery in new contexts, exploring their potential and infusing clichés with new meanings and forms.

Pagans and Christians in Late Ancient Rome

Chapter 4 explores the meaning of “pagan” in late antiquity, debates over its use today, and the meaning and progress of Christianization. Recent controversies over “conversion” and the pace of Christianization, especially among the senatorial aristocracy, have called into question mid-twentieth-century claims that there was an ardent “pagan revival” among aristocrats at the end of the fourth century. Some key elements in that controversy involved the removal of the altar of the goddess Victory from the senate house and the fate of the Vestal Virgins. The chapter details later imperial rulings against pagan practices from the 390s onward. Recent scholarship questions whether conversion to Christianity entailed a radical life change for upper-class Romans. The growth of the number and role of bishops is noted. Christianity’s charity operations were probably a factor in winning some to the new faith. Soon, “heresy” would become a more pressing concern to bishops and some emperors than the occasional “pagan” practitioner.

The Vestal Virgins’ Socio-political Role and the Narrative of Roma Aeterna

Roman women – priestesses, patrician women, mysterious guardians of the sacred flame of goddess Vesta, admired and respected, sometimes blamed for misfortune of the Eternal City. Vestals identified with the eternity of Rome, the priestesses having a specific, unavailable to other women power. That power gained at the moment of a ritual capture (captio) and responsibilities and privileges resulted from it are the subject matter of this paper. The special attention is paid to the importance of Vestals for Rome and Romans in various historic moments, and to the purifying rituals performed by Vestals on behalf of the Roman state’s fortune. The study presents probable dating and possible causes of the end of the College of the Vestals in Rome.

La virgen cristiana en los escritos de Ambrosio y de Agustín

The article presents the figure of the consecrated virgin, as it appears in the writings of Ambrose of Milan and Augustine of Hippo. It also offers a contextual synthesis of the conditions of women in Late Antiquity, both in civil society, presenting the women as uxor, the situation of the Vestal Virgins, as well as the women’s stituation within the Christian communities. Later a summary of the main Latin patristic writings on virginity is made, to analyze and compare in more detail, Saint Ambrose’s De Virginibus and Saint Augustine’s De sancta Virginitate.

Raison d’état, Religion, and the Body in The Rape of Lucrece

With an emphasis on the religious figuration of its heroine’s chaste body, the present essay explores the political dynamics of The Rape of Lucrece. The poem draws on Roman religion and Christianity: Lucrece is an emblem of purity, with echoes of the flaminica or Vestal virgins, and her spotlessness anticipates Christ’s. Seeing these qualities allows us to engage the poem’s gender dynamics and its politics, with both of these being centered on issues of property. While The Rape of Lucrece has been enlisted as an artifact of late Elizabethan republican culture, its depiction of the expulsion of the Tarquins need not lead us to that conclusion. It is nonetheless a product of the political anxieties of Elizabeth’s final years.

Camillus as Numa: religion in Livy’s refoundation narratives

Livy’s first pentad of Ab Urbe Condita begins and ends with the founding and refounding of the city. Both are achieved first through violence and then through the establishment and re-establishment of religious authority and the restoration of Rome’s relationship with its gods. This article examines the connection Livy makes between Numa and Camillus and the place of religion within the refoundation narratives. The religious topography of Rome is essential to Camillus’ argument for the Romans to remain in the city following the Gallic sack. By citing particular priesthoods, the flamen Dialis and the Vestal Virgins in particular, both of which were established or developed by Numa, Livy not only constructs Camillus as a new Numa but also promotes these priesthoods as monumenta. Camillus’ speech forges direct connections between Rome’s conditores, the topography of the city, the devotion to its gods, and the city’s continued glory.